EARLIEST POLAR EXPLORATIONS Itl 



was Cape Jakan, which the explorers afterwards visited ; but, although "they 

 gazed long and earnestly on the horizon, in hopes, as the atmosphere was 

 clear, of discerning some appearance of the northern land," they "could see 

 nothing of it." 



Captain Beechey, who sailed from England in the Dorothea and Trent 

 expeditions in 1818, has left some interesting records. Speaking of the 

 purpose of the voyage he said : 



"The peculiarity of the proposed route afforded opportunities of making 

 some useful experiments on the elliptical figure of the earth; on magnetic 

 phenomena; on the refraction of the atmosphere in high latitudes in ordinary 

 circumstances, and over extensive masses of ice ; and on the temperature and 

 specific gravity of the sea at the surface, and at various depths ; and on mete- 

 orological and other interesting phenomena." The vessels sailed in April, 

 1818; Magdalena Bay, in Spitzbergen, having been appointed as a place of 

 rendezvous, in case of separation. 



On May 24 of that year they reached latitude 74, longitude 17:40 east. 

 There they saw the midnight sun reflected from great ice-masses, described 

 by Beechey thus : 



"Very few of us had ever seen the sun at midnight ; and this night hap- 

 pening to be particularly clear, his broad red disc, curiously distorted by re- 

 fraction, and sweeping majestically along the northern horizon, was an object 

 of imposing grandeur, which riveted to the deck some of our crew, who would 

 perhaps have beheld with indifference the less imposing effect of the icebergs. 

 The rays were too oblique to illuminate more than the inequalities of the floes, 

 and, falling thus partially on the grotesque shapes, either really assumed 

 by the ice or distorted by the unequal refraction of the atmosphere, so be- 

 trayed the imagination that it required no great exertion of fancy to trace 

 in various directions architectural edifices, grottos, and caves, here and there, 

 glittering as if with precious metals." 



Interesting accounts of the habits of Arctic birds are given in Beechey's 

 story. 



"From an early hour in the morning until the period of rest returned, the 

 shores around us reverberated with the merry cry of the little auk, willocks, 

 divers, cormorants, gulls, and other aquatic birds; and, wherever we went, 

 groups of walruses, basking in the sun, mingled their playful roar with the 

 husky bark of the seal." The little auks or rotges (the Alca die) were so 

 numerous, that "we have frequently seen an uninterrupted line of them ex- 



